


Partners in Crime Solving Crimes

by InsertImaginativeNameHere



Series: Detective AU [1]
Category: Baccano!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angry crush, Baccanovember, Detective AU, EVERYTHING IS HAPPY I PROMISE, Huey and Elmer are terrible obnoxious children and ridiculous detectives, Huey is regretting everything, I lied ever so slightly, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mask Maker Trio, Multi, OK MAYBE NOT THAT HAPPY, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-31 00:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8555725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsertImaginativeNameHere/pseuds/InsertImaginativeNameHere
Summary: Huey was doing perfectly fine working as a PI alongside Monica, until notorious detective-for-fun Elmer decided he DEFINITELY needed to get in on it. At first it's an annoyance, then Elmer goes missing. And Huey is not freaking out at all. Nope. Definitely not. Detective AU





	

**Author's Note:**

> I always wanted to write Huey worrying abt Elmer but I couldn't seem to get the pieces together until I decided to write it for Baccanovember and make it an AU. These guys are horrible ridiculous detectives and ahhhh I have a lot of feelings abt the mask maker trio ffs. This is mostly happy and we're pretending nothing bad happens ever. Because we just are. I hope this works okay.
> 
> Nobody is immortal (yet) though if I continue this AU shit will go down. Again, just clarified what I'm working w.
> 
> Quick explanation so nobody gets confused - there's one chronological story going through this, and also various little snippets scattered throughout expanding on certain events. It's just the way the story ended up flowing. I hope it isn't too confusing.

Things had gone wrong, and Elmer was missing. Except he wasn’t. Missing implied not knowing where he was. Huey knew what had happened and knew who was holding his idiot partner as prisoner, in a warehouse toward the south of Lotto Valentino. The problem was extricating the fool from that situation before things got even worse. Stupid Elmer. Stupid Elmer and his stupid lack of self-preservation. Stupid  _ him  _ for caring. If he just left him…

_ No _ .

Couldn’t do that.

Not Elmer.

_ Especially _ not Elmer.

He needed a plan. Not having a plan was what got Elmer captured in the first place. Most of the cases that moron solved, he solved by running directly to the criminals and talking at them until they slipped. It was a bizarre way of operating but it seemed to work somehow. Much as Elmer could irritate, working with him  _ had _ been beneficial, Huey would reluctantly concede if he was ever asked. Though you did have to keep him away from the families of murder victims. He had an annoying tendency to tell them to smile after their grandmother had been brutally murdered in the kitchen and her eyes stabbed out. That was the kind of guy he was.

Nobody wanted to collab with him on cases. He was dubbed ‘the Smile Junkie’ by newspapers who took great pains to indicate the inappropriate joy he seemed to possess during the grimmest situations, and other private detectives steered clear of him like the plague.

 

-

 

“Ugh. He’s such a creep. His whole attitude disgusts me. I saw him grinning at a funeral. Talk about poor taste,” a private investigator with long bangs remarked offhandedly. There was some agreement to this.

“Hey, come off it Fermet, he’s basically harmless. Just weird. Not a bad guy You’re just bitter.”

“Um...are we talking about Elmer?” Monica had asked. “Because Elmer’s actually a friend of mine. He’s just...he’s just Elmer. He likes smiles.”

“Because that doesn’t sound sinister at all,” Huey had joined the conversation, rolling his eyes. “Monica, you can’t say he  _ isn’t _ creepy. I mean, he kind of is.”

“Hey, aren’t you his best friend?” Someone had pointed out and Huey’s expression had become one of disgust.

“No,” Huey snapped. “No I’m not. We just work together. He’s convenient. Nobody can spot fake smiles like he can.”

And that was true.

Well, most of it was true anyway.

 

-

 

“Hey, Huey, you want to collab? Please? Pleasepleaseplease? It’ll be fun! You might even enjoy it. You might enjoy it so much you can’t help but smil-”

“Go away.”

If it had been anyone else, they might have sagged dejectedly and ambled off. This was, however,  _ Elmer _ . And Elmer didn’t do that.

Instead he grinned. “But you’re going to the press conference too, right? We may as well walk the same way.”

“I would rather  _ not _ .”

“You mean you’re so petty you’ll take a long detour just to avoid me? Awww, that’s so sweet. I’m flattered.”

Huey gritted his teeth. “I don’t care what you think.”

“Great!” Elmer clapped his hands in celebration. “So we’re walking to the press conference together then?”

He didn’t let up. “Yeah. I guess we are.” Huey hoped he’d shut up now.

Instead, his smile seemed wider than ever before.  _ Great _ .

 

-

 

Huey had a lead on a member of the group that had taken Elmer. He tailed them to a bar where he watched them covertly for a few hours until he had a solid opportunity to make an approach. He took a shot of whiskey before standing up and starting to head over when he saw  long blonde hair, a woman sidling through the other patrons and getting close to the guy. Almost imperceptible now, a hand in a pocket, removing a phone with ease, slipping the back off and placing a small bug inside, then back in the man’s pocket it went.

_ Monica…? _

What was Monica doing on this case? 

Panic flooded him but he kept calm, shut it down before it could even begin. It wasn’t safe. She couldn’t be here. They’d already taken Elmer.

Huey didn’t want to lose the people he cared about most. He’d lost his mother a long time ago and told himself not to form attachments. Despite his better judgement he had. Just look how  _ that _ was turning out.

“Um, uh, h-hey Huey?” Monica had approached him without warning and he jumped slightly. “Are you okay? Did I surprise you? I- I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!”

“What are you doing here?” he hissed.

“Looking for Elmer,” she replied, a fierce determination running through her words. “He’s missing, right?”

“Wrong,” Huey shot back. “He isn’t. I know where he is. I just need more info before I can go in. Can’t call the cops. They might kill him.” He glanced around cautiously. “We can’t talk about this here. Meet you at the office?”

Monica nodded. “See you there.” And suddenly, shyly, she kissed Huey’s cheek, before darting out of the bar, her face flushed and red. Huey couldn’t help smiling faintly, and he wished Elmer was there to see it. The thought cut his smile off before it could even get started. Had to find Elmer. Had to rescue him.

He rushed back to the office, wind toying with his dark hair until he tied it back in a quick ponytail out of frustration and kept walking briskly onward. No time to waste. He hailed a cab and almost forgot to pay, he was so worried. Not that most people would have seen how concerned he was. Not really.

Elmer would have.

Elmer was good at things like that.

 

-

 

“It is with great sadness that my husband leaves us, but his memory will live on forever in all of our hearts. We must not allow ourselves to become trapped by grief. There is a light after loss, and we must find it together as a family, while you good people find the one who took such a beloved man from us.” The wife of the victim smiled. “Thank you so much for your time, and thank you for the work you continue to do for us.”

Huey looked over at Elmer, expecting him to be grinning, but instead there was a puzzled expression on his face. “I don’t get it,” he said.

“Don’t get what?” Huey asked irritably. 

“Why she’s smiling.”

“I thought you wanted everyone to smile 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. God, Elmer, it was a grim smile. Resigned. She’s trying to put up a brave face.”

Elmer shook his head. “Nope. That was a genuine smile. She’s happy her husband’s dead. Oh well. Probably not important. Hey, there’s a really good ice-cream parlor near here, they make the ice-cream look like roses. You wanna go grab some?”

“What did you just say?” Huey stared at him in shock.

“I know, isn’t it cool? Flower-shaped ice-cream! It almost looks too good to eat!”

“Before that, idiot,” hissed Huey. “The smile thing. You can tell the difference between real and fake smiles?”

Elmer seemed taken aback by the question for a moment. “Of course I can. It’s easy. Wait, yeah, the widow was smiling genuinely. Good for her. People should smile more after family members die. Someone should be happy about it. Hey, you aren’t suspecting she committed the murder, are you?”

Huey smirked. “Let’s just say I think I have a few questions for her.”

“Gotcha!” Elmer grinned. 

Huey frowned in annoyance. “What do you look so pleased about?”

“Nothing.” Elmer’s grin somehow managed to widen. “Only, you’re using info I gave you so this means we’re  _ technically _ collabing so...we’re partners now, right?”

“No,” Huey replied, but this couldn’t quell Elmer’s delight. Nothing could.

“Yay! Partners! Give me a high five, partner!” 

Reluctantly, Huey high-fived him.

“C’mon! Let’s go get some ice-creams and then go solve a murder! Wait, is the plural ice-cream or ice-creams? Like, grammatically? Who knows? I guess it’s just a mystery of life!”

Huey followed after him, wondering what the fuck had gone wrong in his life.

 

-

 

Finally he arrived back at the office, pushing the lift button urgently, then when the lift didn’t arrive immediately, running up the stairs as fast as he could, two or three at a time. He reached the office and burst in, seeing Monica sat at her desk listening to the transmission from the bug she’d planted. She hushed him before he could say anything and motioned him over, turning the volume up on her laptop so the sound was clearer.

Nothing. Just fuzzy background noise. 

“Monica-”

“Sssh.”

“Bugs don’t work both ways, you know? They’re not going to hear us,” Huey muttered. 

“I know that!” Monica retorted. “Remember the time Elmer  _ did _ install a bug that worked both ways in the office so he could rickroll us when he wasn’t around?” Huey did. He didn’t really want reminding of that right now. “Oh- I’m sorry Huey I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s alright,” he sighed. 

“No. You’re worried about Elmer, aren’t you?”

“No,” Huey replied immediately and then reddened. “Okay, maybe a little. He’s an idiot. Someone has to.”

“He’ll be fine. This is Elmer. Nothing can stop his optimism.”

‘Nothing can stop his optimism’. Because any torture they put him through wouldn’t be the worst he’d experienced, would it? Judging by the scars on his back, no, the ones that were ‘worse on the front’. They wouldn’t be able to break Elmer, Huey knew this. But he was still worried. What if they gave up trying to get through to him? What if they just decided to kill him, and the body would wash up a few days later, smile still on his face.  Before he could voice any of this, he heard a default ringtone go off and reached for his phone, then realised it was what the bug was picking up. 

‘ _ Hello?’ _ the guy on the other end answered the phone, instantly launching into his rant.  _ ‘Look, I don’t care what you say, I’m not coming back in tonight. No way. If you think I’m sitting through that again you’re dead fucking wrong _ ’

Listening with bated breath, Huey waited for the response. 

_ ‘Wow, way to say hi. I wasn’t even calling to ask you that. I just wanted some ideas. You’ve got a good imagination. What do you think will work? _ ’

_ ‘Honestly? I don’t think anyone has an imagination that good. Tell me he doesn’t freak you the fuck out.’ _

_ ‘Fine, okay, he does. Even when we broke out the electrodes, he still kept grinning and saying we should enjoy ourselves. _ ’ Huey tensed listening to this, Monica squeezed his hand.  _ ‘Because apparently someone needs to smile when hurting someone else. Seriously.’ _

_ ‘Oh, I know. He was the same when we were beating the shit out of him after catching him. You should smile when you hit someone, he told me. Really put the chills on me somehow. And the bosses don’t get it. They’re demanding results and I’m like guys if you were in a room with him for five minutes, you’d understand. If you saw those scars and then listened to him talk. But no. We’ve gotta pull results out of our asses somehow. And I’m not going in there again. Telling you, man, you’re in this alone.’ _

_ ‘Oh c’mon, please, you’ve gotta at least have an idea what we can do’ _

_ ‘Yeah. Give the fuck up, that’s my idea.’ _

_ ‘My job’s on the line, man. Yours too’ _

_ ‘Well shit. Maybe tell him that and tell him we won’t be able to smile if we lose our jobs and we will lose our jobs if he doesn’t talk. That’ll probably work.’ _

A disdainful snort.  _ ‘Sure, okay, whatever man. No thanks for your help _ .’

_ ‘Dude, I tried. What did you even want from me?’ _

_ ‘Something better than that,’ _ the guy on the phone said and then hung up. 

_ ‘Asshole _ ’ the man with the bug in his phone muttered. And then went quiet, leaving Monica and Huey staring at one another in stunned silence. Huey started toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Monica asked him anxiously.

He shrugged. “You heard them. They’ve been torturing Elmer and it’s not going as planned because it’s Elmer so of course it isn’t. They’re going to give up soon and then he’ll stop being valuable to them. They’ll dispose of him, Monica. They’re going to kill him. We need to launch a rescue now.”

“We don’t have a plan!” Monica stressed. “We still don’t know what kind of resources they have in that warehouse.”

“If you’d let me capture the guy rather than just bugging his phone, we could have found that out by now,” Huey muttered. “We could even have used him as leverage. This would have worked, Monica!”

“Or we’d have given away our position, the fact we’re onto them! Huey, we have to be careful if we want to get Elmer back alive, okay? We can’t just storm in there, guns blazing.”

“Who says?” 

“Pardon?” 

Huey smiled darkly. “Who says we can’t? Come on. Elmer’ll thank us for it. Please, Monica. I can’t do this without you.”

Monica relented. “Fine. For Elmer. And for you too. If anything bad happened and I wasn’t there-”

“Something bad already has happened,” Huey retorted. “We need to go get Elmer back before this gets any worse.”

He didn’t want to imagine how much worse it could get.

But he did anyway.

 

-

 

“I...can’t believe that worked. She literally turned herself in because you talked at her. Is this how you normally solve cases?”

They’d just finished looking into their first case together and Huey was very, very confused about whatever had just happened. By all rights, walking up to the murder suspect and talking to them nonstop shouldn’t have been able to elicit a confession and yet…

“Pretty much, yeah.” Elmer shrugged. 

Huey frowned. “So you walk up to murderers and tell them if murder makes them happy then it’s fair enough that they killed the victim and you don’t hold it against them? You really do that?” Elmer nodded. “Is that what you really think?”

“Yeah. If it makes them happy, then sure. The problem is it makes other people sad so I try to persuade them to turn themselves in so other people can be happy again and it all works out alright in the end. That’s always nice. People don’t usually go for it though. I did used to give them a chance to run away before I turned all the evidence into the police, but that made the police annoyed with me, so now I do this instead.”

Huey couldn’t believe it. “You’re...you really have no morals, do you?”

“Nope!” Elmer grinned proudly. “I’ll do anything for a smile, me.”

“So you solve crimes just to see people’s smiles after you complete cases?” Huey asked, eyebrows raised. Elmer nodded excitably. “That’s so, so warped. You’re - you’re an evil person, aren’t you?”

“Kinda. If you mean that I don’t really care about other people, sure. I just like smiles for myself.”

“What wouldn’t you do for a smile?”

“What would make  _ you _ smile?” Elmer replied. “All your smiles are fake. It’d be nice to see you smile genuinely.”

“What if me killing someone would make me smile genuinely?” Huey posited the question, looking at Elmer and trying to gauge what his response might be. He wasn’t sure what he  _ hoped _ it would be. He wasn’t sure anything would reassure him right now.

“Depends. If the person wanted to die and that would make them happy, sure. If not, then I’d have to stop you. And there might be people who would be made sad by their death. So it depends. If everything adds up then yeah. I’d let you go ahead with it, I think.” Huey felt a chill run down his spine. Elmer slapped him on the back cheerfully and draped an arm over his shoulder. “Anyway! We solved our first case together! Isn’t that amazing? We’re proper partners now! Can we work together again?”

Huey’s common sense said no.

“Sure,” Huey replied. “I guess maybe you can come in handy.”

Why had he just said that? He wasn’t sure.

After that day, Elmer moved into his office and started filling the place with little collectable figurines from Happy Meals, even collecting the boxes with horrifying faces on and stacking them around his desk in some weird fortress. He made the place cluttered, disorganised and far less efficient. But they solved cases at a faster rate, they were going places. Monica didn’t mind having him around either. Their agency was getting more and more clients per month. They were making money.

So Huey couldn’t kick Elmer out now. That was what he told himself. Things were pretty good. When they didn’t have cases, they’d pick out movies and curl up, Elmer hogging the popcorn half of the time and pelting Huey with it demanding he tried to catch it in his mouth the rest of the time. It was frustrating.

It was...actually rather fun.

Not that Huey would tell Elmer that. Ever.

Part of him liked having the guy around, regardless of his lack of empathy and absurd tactics. Part of him was enjoying this. 

He ignored that part and kept his front of irritation up as long as he could.

Until Elmer went missing.

 

-

 

Outside the warehouse Elmer was being kept in, Huey and Monica waited. Currently they couldn’t agree on a plan of attack. Monica wanted to use the fire escape and sneak in. Huey wanted to create a distraction to bring whatever guards there were out. In retrospect, they should have agreed on the plan before heading over but Huey needed to get out of the office. He’d felt Elmer’s desk staring at him - in a figurative sense, not just because of those  _ terrifying _ Happy Meal boxes. He needed to feel like he was doing something, even if it was only trying to figure out a way into the building.

Something struck him. 

“Hey, Monica, isn’t there another way into the building?”

“What are you talking abou-  _ ohhhh _ .” Realisation dawned on Monica too. “This building is built upon tunnels. There’ll be a way in.”

“And a way out,” a familiar, happy-go-lucky voice came from behind them. Huey wheeled around, prepared to glare at Elmer but found he couldn’t when he saw him. Battered, bloodied, bruised. His wrists looked chafed and raw, he didn’t have a shirt and those horrible, hideous scars were blatantly on display and  _ oh God he was right they  _ _ were _ _ worse on the front _ . And he was smiling. “Hey guys. Fancy seeing you here.” Huey just stared in horror “What? You aren’t happy to see me?” He teetered, unsteady on his feet, barely able to stand. From inside the warehouse, yelling could be heard, the doors opening and guys with guns coming out. 

And Elmer was barely conscious.

And whatever tunnels he’d used to get out were by no means secret, he was bound to be followed.

Monica nodded and they moved quickly, Huey taking Elmer’s left arm, Monica taking his right. Together they manoeuvred him away, as fast as they could, limping down sidestreets to a main road where they could get themselves a taxi to the nearest hospital. The driver seemed alarmed but Huey told him to drive as fast as he could and offered to pay double. That seemed to settle that one.

“How did you escape?” Monica was asking Elmer. 

Elmer gave a messy grin, painful looking grin. “Oh, it’s easy to wriggle out of ropes when they aren’t tied right. Took me a little bit because they were busy asking questions, who I was working for, what I knew, who else was in on it, trying to get answers.”

“You didn’t tell them anything?”

Elmer shook his head. “I said I’d tell them if they gave me a genuine smile. They didn’t even try. And I knew you’d be coming to get me and if they captured you too that wouldn’t work. Even if I had told them, I don’t think they would have smiled. So I escaped instead.”

As always, Elmer’s logic lacked anything remotely resembling logic. Nothing had changed. Elmer was Elmer, as always. And Huey couldn’t help feeling guilty for letting Elmer run off and get himself into that situation. He should have been more careful. As Elmer’s partner, he should have kept a better eye on him. 

“Wait, drop me off here,” he said suddenly as they passed a police precinct. “I’m going to go and tip them off about what happened.”

“Oh. Okay.” Monica seemed a little taken aback by this, clearly slightly shaken. “B-be careful.”

“You too,” Huey replied, carefully emotionless. “Elmer-” his partner - fuck it, his  _ best friend _ looked at him and Huey couldn’t meet his eyes at first until he forced himself. “You just...you just be okay, okay? Get better.”

“Awww, you care about me!” Elmer wasn’t being sarcastic, he sounded genuinely flattered. “Thanks Huey! C’mere.” He grabbed Huey’s hand and kissed it softly. “See you! You go tell the police about the crazy conspiracy shit! I’m sure Victor will be so happy to see you!” 

Again, no sarcasm. Huey groaned, jerking his hand away. “Thanks for reminding me about that Elmer. See you both later.”

With that he walked away, not looking back until he was sure the taxi was gone. He stared at his hand strangely.  _ Shit _ . What the fuck had Elmer gone and done that for? Surely he knew that’d have the opposite effect instead as making him smile? Knowing Elmer, this was probably a long game he was playing to manipulate Huey into smiling for him. Something like that anyway. Putting that to the back of his mind, he shoved his hands into his pockets and walked into the police station, realising all too late he was covered in Elmer’s blood.

“This isn’t what it looks like-” he began.

“Like hell it isn’t,” he heard someone practically growl and turned to see Victor Talbot, lead Detective for this precinct. “You freelancers are all the same. You blunder into shit and then ask the real cops to come bail you out. Is that about right, Laforet?”

Huey couldn’t deny that. “It’s Elmer. We were looking into a conspiracy case and he got himself caught, tortured, he escaped...we have irrefutable evidence on them now. You have to go in and arrest them.”

“Are you telling me how to do my own damn job?” Victor glowered at him. “‘Cause I hope for your sake you’re not.”

“No. I’ll give you the files on the case, alright? Let the ‘real cops’ do their jobs.”

“That’s generous of you,” Victor muttered. “Now you head on to the hospital to be with your weird boyfriend already. I’ll meet you there and we do an exchange of info, alright?”

Huey was in no mood to argue.

He left the precinct without even correcting Victor for once.

 

-

 

“Hey look Huey, it’s Victor! He looks stressed. Shall we go say hi and try to cheer him up?”

Huey looked over at the detective, who as per always, had his eyebrows furrowed in intense frustration. Pissing him off would not be wise. He was about to say this Elmer when he realised his partner had already vanished and gone jaunting over to Victor to say hi. His heart sank. Oh God. There was no way this could end well.

“Victor! Why don’t you turn that frown upside down? C’mon Detective, give us a smile.”

Funnily enough Victor’s expression only soured. “ _ Oh _ . It’s you. The Smile Junkie. What do you want?”

“Nothing much. Only a smile.”

“I’m actually on a case right now, freelancer, so  _ screw you _ I need to get to work, go waste someone else’s time. Or better yet, leave solving crimes to those of us qualified to do it and find yourself a new job, I hear they’re hiring birthday clowns.”

Huey groaned and went to extricate him from the situation before it escalated. 

“Hey, that’s kind of rude,” Elmer was saying. “A lot of people are scared of clowns. It’s more likely to upset them than make them smile.”

“Do I look like I give a-”

Huey cut him off. “Come on Elmer. We’ve got work to do.”

“Oh look, it’s your boyfriend,” Victor pulled a face. “You go and play nice. Keep out of my way.”

“I’m not his boyfriend,” Huey snapped defensively. “I’m not even his friend. We’re just coworkers alright?”

Victor laughed. “Sure. And I’m the goddamn Queen of Sheba. Goodbye, good riddance, whatever. If I never have to run into you two on a case again it’ll be a blessing.”

He stormed off with all his typical drama and fury, leaving Huey looking at Elmer and despairing. “Why did you have to do that? We’re going to be on his shitlist forever. You do realise that? Why do you  _ always _ do this?”

Elmer shrugged. “Do anything for a smile, won’t I?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Huey muttered. “C’mon. We have a case. Shut up and let’s get to work.” 

“Okay!” Elmer’s enthusiasm wasn’t dampened. “Hey, are you offended he called you my boyfriend?”

“Mildly,” Huey muttered. “Are you offended that I said you’re not my friend?”

“Nope!”

“Okay, good.” Huey relaxed, not that he cared what Elmer thought. “He’d better not call me that again though.”

Unsurprisingly, Victor did. Repeatedly.

Much to Huey’s chagrin.

_ And Elmer’s amusement. _

 

-

 

Arriving at the hospital with copies of the case files, Huey waited outside Elmer’s room, at first because the doctors were seeing him and nobody was allowed in. Then because he was asleep. Later because the police were asking questions. And eventually because he couldn’t face going in. Monica had been in to see him a couple of times and said he seemed to be doing okay, didn’t blame Huey for what had happened at all. It wasn’t Huey’s fault. It wasn’t like they’d argued, Huey had forced Elmer into the situation or something. He just hadn’t stopped him. He’d known Elmer was going to walk right into danger as always and he’d done  _ nothing _ . He should have stopped him. What the hell kind of partner was he?

“You sulking, Laforet?” He looked up to see Victor looking down at him disdainfully. “You upset about your boyfriend? He’s fine, by the way. Since you don’t seem to give a shit about him.”

“I-” he cut off. “Look, I brought you the files you wanted.” He passed them over. “Here. It’s your case now. You go do your job.”

“Cute,” Victor replied. “I got you something too. ‘Cause I’m generous like that.” He tossed a file into Huey’s lap. “Go say hi to your boyfriend anyway. It’s a dick move to wait out here. Read that first and don’t say I never give you anything. Goddamn freelancers.” He turned tail and wandered off haughtily, already flicking through the files Huey had handed him. He was so focused on his reading he walked into a door and Huey smirked. 

He looked down at the file in his hands.

It was about a major investigation into a cult some years ago. The cult had apparently worshipped pain, especially the pain of children. For this purpose, specific children would be chosen and designated for a life of agony and sacrifice. It was bleak. Reading it, Huey felt a sinking feeling rising in his chest. A kid who’d been set to be brutally murdered from birth, had been born for this purpose. 

The investigation had come to a head as the child, who’d only ever known pain his entire life, was about to be killed, he’d been saved and put into a Catholic foster home where he’d been hailed as a miracle child.

He’d been baptised as Elmer C Albatross. The file didn’t specify what the C stood for.

He’d broken out of his foster home when still a teenager and had travelled for a while until he started working as a private detective. There were a couple of psychiatrist records from counselling sessions which speculated it was a miracle he wasn’t permanently traumatised. That he stood a good chance of permanent recovery. But as the notes continued they were starting to realise something was off with Elmer’s mindset but they hadn’t been able to put their finger on it. They just thought he was over-empathising, that was the source of him wanting people to be happy, a way of coping with trauma. Rather than the truth - that he didn’t care about people’s feelings so long as he saw smiles, because he liked smiles. If he saw genuine smiles, he could maybe smile genuinely, he’d said once. None of them had realised what Elmer was.

And then the files said he’d vanished. 

Now he was Huey’s partner. His friend. Now he was the Smile Junkie. Nothing anyone could do would beat the pain he’d experienced as a child that had formed him into who he was. A permanent, unstoppable optimist. 

Huey found himself reading one of the quotes over and over. ‘ _ People should smile more. My parents always smiled when they hurt me _ ’ and he could imagine the exact tone Elmer would say that in. Which somehow made it worse. Elmer didn’t feel bad about it, didn’t hold a grudge against them because the way he saw it they were just doing what made them happy. 

It made Huey feel sick to his stomach. He wanted to find these people and find a way to make them pay. They’d been sentenced for life, no chance at parole. He’d never meet them, now or ever. But he was completely sickened. It reminded him how cruel humanity could be,  _ always _ would be. It was so much worse than what had happened to him, when his mother had been killed. And Elmer  _ still _ only wanted smiles. He didn’t reject the entirety of humankind. He accepted the evil in their nature and wanted them to be happy nonetheless. It was such a warped outlook. But it was so, so Elmer.

Putting the file away, Huey swallowed his tension and fear and walked into the room where Elmer lay in his hospital bed, flicking through channels on the TV. The minute he saw Huey his face lit up.

He couldn’t have felt more guilty seeing that smile.

Thinking about how he’d felt terrified it was gone forever. Genuinely terrified.

The backstory to that ever-present effervescent smile. 

“Huey! I was wondering when you were going to come in. Victor was just bitching about you waiting in the hall like it was the worst thing ever.” Huey said nothing. “What’s up?”

“Victor gave me a file about you. About your childhood.”

Elmer’s smile didn’t waver. Not even momentarily. “Ohh right. Yeah, that happened. But you kind of already knew, right? You knew whatever happened it wasn’t great. It’s fine. C’mere. Give us a-” Huey rolled his eyes preemptively. He expected Elmer to say ‘smile’.

He didn’t.

“Kiss,” he finished.

Huey froze, deer in the headlights, internally screaming. How to even react. What could he possibly say or do? He’d hit the blue screen of death and everything else had autoshutdown whether he liked it or not.

“Uh...you know I’m dating Monica, right?” Huey managed eventually. Elmer nodded.

“Yep! Don’t worry, I checked with Moni-moni before asking you. She’s excited about it. She said you needed to deal with your angry crush sometime so I may as well go right ahead. Oh, and I didn’t kiss her. Not without your permission too. So? You want in?”

Huey just stared. “You’re serious. You really want to go ahead with this? Even after I was the worst partner ever? After I let you get captured? I’ve never even said we were friends, Elmer. All I’ve done is deny it.”

“True. But that was just your angry crush talking.” Elmer snickered as Huey went red. “I know that we’re friends anyway no matter what you say. And one day you’ll smile for real. I’m gonna be there when you do.”

“You are...such an idiot,” Huey muttered.

“So I don’t get that kiss then?”

He did.

Somewhat awkwardly. And only on the cheek. 

But it still counted.

 

-

 

“What’s with the new desk?” Monica asked, coming into the office after a brief trip away. 

“Don’t ask,” Huey muttered, head in his hands. “Seriously. If you acknowledge it it summons him.”

“Summons who-”

“Moni-moni!” Elmer popped up from behind the fortress of Happy Meal boxes and incomplete paperwork. “Did Huey not tell you? I work here now!”

“He does?”

Huey sighed. “He sort of invited himself here and won’t leave.”

“So you didn’t tell me the address and give me a key, then?”

“No,” Huey said through gritted teeth. “You showed up here and broke in. I only gave you a key after it became obvious you didn’t plan on going anywhere.”

“But you were the one who said we were partners so…”

“I SAID NOTHING OF THE SORT.”

“Did so.”

“Did not.”

He heard Monica laugh. “You two are such children. Nice to have you here, Elmer. I bet we’re going to solve a tonne of cases with you.”

Huey groaned. “Great. All I needed. You two teaming up. What did I do to deserve this?”

What had he done to deserve this constant irritation and intrusion into his personal space? What had he done to bring any of this down on his head?

What had he done to get two people so attached to him they clung on like limpets and refused to leave?

He didn’t deserve this. On so many levels. 

But apparently this was what he’d ended up with.

 

-

 

After Elmer got discharged he insisted on going straight back to the office, despite the twin voices of logic and reason telling him he needed rest. You couldn’t talk Elmer out of anything. He just did what he wanted. Which was how they ended up curled up on the sofa binge-watching re-runs of the Mentalist and gorging on Ben and Jerry’s. 

They were playing a game they always did with procedurals that involved trying to figure out the murderer before the dramatic reveal. Huey had got almost all of them right so far and was criticising the overall writing of the show at this point. Monica figured some of them out but wasn’t confident enough to guess until the minute it was being revealed when she’d awkwardly admit she’d figured bits of it out earlier.

Elmer, meanwhile was routinely pinning the blame on ‘dinosaurs’. 

“It’s not dinosaurs, Elmer,” Huey muttered after the seventh consecutive episode and the seventh consecutive accusation of ‘dinosaurs with claws and sharp pointy teeth’ being the culprits (in a poisoning case).

“One day it’s gonna be dinosaurs and you are going to look like such an idiot.” Elmer beamed proudly.

“It’s literally  _ never _ going to be dinosaurs.”

“One day,” murmured Elmer sleepily. “One day. And who’ll be the idiot then. You.” He was gradually leaning closer, head coming to rest on Huey’s lap where he yawned and fell asleep. Huey stared down at him and looked over at Monica with a look of sheer panic on his face.

“What do I-”

“Sssh. Don’t wake him up. He looks really cute when he’s asleep.”

“Yeah,” Huey smiled faintly. “He does.”

“GOTCHA!” Elmer sat bolt upright. “I saw that!”

His expression turned to one of disgust. “That doesn’t count. It wasn’t a proper smile and it was only for a second. Also I thought you were asleep. You manipulative little shit.”

Elmer grinned. “You can say what you like, but I’ll treasure it in my heart forever. Forever and ever and ever.”

Sighing, Huey let Elmer snuggle into him again. “Why am I even letting you do this? What am I doing with my life?” 

“Good things,” Elmer mumbled. “Being a pillow.”

“Glad you appreciate that.”

Monica budged over and squeezed in next to them with a blanket, forming a complete cuddlepile of nerd detectives.

“We are a very serious detective agency and we solve very serious crimes,” Elmer was saying now. “We are.”

They were.

And everything was finally okay.

 

-

 

For now, anyway.


End file.
